Introduction to Attachment

Question 1

Reciprocity:

Answer 1

A description of how 2 people interact. Mother-infant interaction is reciprocal in both infant and mother respond to each other’s signals and each elicits a response from the other.

Question 2

Interactional synchrony:

Answer 2

Mother and infant reflect both the actions and emotions of the other and do this in a co-ordinated way.

Question 3

Feldman and Eidelman 2007:

Answer 3

1. Babies have periodic alert phases and signal that they are ready for interaction. Mothers tend to pick up on and respond to infant alertness around 2/3 of the time.
2. From around 3 months this interaction tends to be increasingly frequent and involves close attention to each other’s verbal signals.

Question 4

Does the baby have an active or passive role?

Answer 4

1. Traditional views of childhood see the baby in a passive role, receiving care from the adult.
2. Both mother and child can initiate interactions and they appear to take turns doing so, a more active role.
3. Brazleton et al. (1975) described this interaction as a dance.

Question 5

Meltzoff and Moore (1977):

Answer 5

1. Observed the beginnings of interactional synchrony in infants as young as 2 weeks old.
2. An adult displayed one of three facial expressions or distinctive gestures.
3. The child’s response was filmed and identified by independent observers.
4. An association was found between the expression or gesture the adult had displayed and the actions of the babies.

Question 6

Isabella et al. (1989):

Answer 6

1. Observed 30 mothers and infants together and assessed the degree of synchrony.
2. The researchers also assessed the quality of mother-infant attachment.
3. They found high levels of synchrony were associated with better quality mother-infant attachment.

Question 7

Parent- infant attachment:

Answer 7

1. Schaffer and Emerson (1964) found that the majority of babies did become attached to their mother at around 7 months and within a few months formed secondary attachments to other family members.
2. In 75% of infants studied an attachment was formed with the father by the age of 18 months.
3. They protested when their father walked away- a sign of attachment.

Question 8

The role of the father:

Answer 8

1. Grossman (2002) carried out a longitudinal study looking at both parents’ behaviour and its relationship to the quality of the children’s attachments into their teens.
2. Quality of infant attachment with mother but not fathers was related to children’s attachments in adolescence, suggesting that the father attachment was less important.
3. However, the quality of the fathers’ play with infants was related to the quality of adolescent attachments.
4. Fathers have a different role in attachment- one that is more to do with play and stimulation and less to do with nurturing.

Question 9

Fathers as primary carers:

Answer 9

1. Some evidence to suggest that when fathers do take on the role of being the main caregiver they adopt behaviours that have been associated with mothers.
2. Field (1978) filmed 4 month old babies in face-to-face interaction with primary cg mothers, scg fathers and pcg fathers.
3. PCG fathers like mothers spent more time smiling, imitating and holding infants than SCG fathers.
4. Fathers van be the more nurturing attachment figure, level of responsiveness is key not the gender.

Question 10

E: Hard to know what is happening with infants

Answer 10

1.Many studies involving observations of interactions between mothers and infants have shown the same patterns of interaction (Gratier 2003).
2. What is being observed is merely hand movements or changes in expression.
3. Hard to be certain what is happening from the infant’s perspective. Is it deliberate and conscious.
4. Cannot be sure that behaviours seen in mother-infant interaction have a special meaning.

Question 11

E: Controlled observations capture fine detail.

Answer 11

1. They are generally well-controlled procedures, with both the mother and infant being filmed, often from many angles.
2. The fine details of behaviour can be recorded and later analysed.
3. Babies do not know or care whether or not they are being filmed so their behaviour does not change in response to controlled observation.
4. That is generally a problem for observational research, has good validity.

Question 12

E: Does not explain why synchrony and reciprocity happens.

Answer 12

1. Feldman (2012) points out that synchrony simply describes behaviours that occur at the same time.
2. They are robust phenomena in the sense that they can be reliably observed.
3. Does not tell us the purpose.
4. There is some evidence that reciprocal interaction and synchrony are helpful in the development of mother-infant attachment, as well as helpful in stress responses, empathy and moral development.

Question 13

E: Inconsistent findings on fathers

Answer 13

1. Research into the role of fathers in attachment is confusing because different researchers are interested in different research questions.
2. Some are concerned about understanding the role of PCG fathers and other SCG fathers.
3. The former tended to find that fathers can take on a maternal role and the latter showed fathers’ having a distinct role from mothers.
4. Means psychologists cannot answer a simple question ‘what is the role of the father?’

Question 14

E: If fathers have a distinct role why aren’t children without fathers different?

Answer 14

1. Study by Grossman that was previously mentioned found that fathers as a secondary attachment figure had an important role in their children’s development.
2. Other studies (MacCallum and Golombok 2004) have found that children growing up in single or same-sex parent families do not develop any differently from those in 2 parent heterosexual families.

Question 15

Why don’t fathers generally become primary attachments?

Answer 15

1. Result of traditional gender roles.
2. Female hormones like oestrogen create higher levels of nurturing and therefore women are biologically pre-disposed to be the primary attachment figure. (Taylor et al. 2000)

Question 16

E: Working Mothers

Answer 16

1. Research into mother-infant interaction is socially sensitive because it suggests that children may be disadvantaged by particular child-rearing practices.
2. Mothers who return to work shortly after a child is born restrict the opportunities for achieving interactional synchrony, which Isabella et al. showed to be important in developing the infant-caregiver attachment.
3. This could be taken to suggest that mothers should not return to work.
4. Other research shows that working mother have plenty of time for such interactions after working hours. (Fox 1977)